On leaving Boston I proceeded by railway to Lowell, (26 miles,) a town
which has had a most rapid rise, inasmuch as its population, which in 1820
was 200, and in 1828 only 3,532, amounts now to 50,000.

It is situated at the confluence of the rivers Merrimack and Concord,
and derives its name from Francis Lowell of Boston, who first introduced
the manufacture of cotton into the United States.

Lowell, as well as the other cotton manufactures in the United States,
at one time rivalled England in the Indian, Chinese, and Brazilian markets
for the coarser kinds of cotton cloths, where a large quantity of the raw
material and comparatively but little labour was required; but in the fabric
of the finer sorts, and in the printing of all, they could never compete
with the manufacturers of this country. They may be said, however, to rest
on an artificial foundation, being kept up by the highly protective duties
of from 25 to 35 per cent., which the Americans impose on foreign
goods in order to foster their own manufactures, though imposed ostensibly
for purposes of revenue. This has had the effect of making the whole inhabitants
of a country, containing three million of square miles, and 30,000,000
of people, pay one-fourth more for their goods than they would otherwise
do; a degree of folly which it is difficult to account for.

Though it may appear remarkable that the weight of cotton consumed at
Lowell should be only one-third less than is used at Glasgow, and that
the former already produces more than one-half the number of yards of powerloom
cloth which are woven in Glasgow, yet these are all coarse and heavy, such
as sheetings, shirtings, drillings, calicoes, &c., and made of low-priced
cotton. The cost of transport from Europe upon goods of this class forms
so large a per-centage of their whole value, as to give the American manufacturers
the entire command of their own market for these articles. Glasgow chiefly
produces cotton goods, into the price of which labour enters to the extent
of from 50 to 60 per cent. of the whole cost; and such goods Lowell
does not produce, owing to the high price of labour, and the expensive
way in which manufacturing is conducted. In heavy goods, and in such as
involve little labour, the Americans may still however compete successfully
whenever the price of cotton is low. The high price of cotton, however,
is more destructive to them than it is to us. In the year 1850 the price,
of cotton rose to eightpence a pound, so that some of the mills in Lowell
and elsewhere had to be shut up. By the month of July 1851 the same article
had actually fallen to fivepence the pound, a fall of nearly 50 per
cent. in nine months, so that the Lowell mills all started again.

Lowell, like all the manufactories of America, is indebted for its rise
and progress to the protective duties imposed on foreign goods. The proper
meaning of the word "protection," is, that unprofitable labor should be
made remunerative, by taxing the country to make up the difference. The
Americans themselves are so perfectly aware of the necessity of this, that
the New York Tribune of September 1851, says, "Abolish protection here,
and in six months there would scarcely be a cotton or woollen mill, or
furnace, at work in the country." Were the Americans to look to Switzerland
for example, they would discover that her prosperity was owing to her entire
freedom of trade. She exchanges what she can best produce and spare with
whatever country has the most of what she wants, and gives them at cost
price, instead of augmenting them to her domestic consumers by a duty.

As for protecting duties, the Swiss people believe that if a trade cannot
support itself without a protecting duty, that is sufficient proof that
the trade is not suited to the capacities of the country--the proof being
that the articles in question can be produced for less money elsewhere.
This is taken as sufficient evidence that it is injurious to the country
to continue or to protect any such trade; first, because consumers in Switzerland
must lose the difference between the low price of the foreign article and
the higher price of the home article; and, secondly, because the trade
in articles which Switzerland can produce, is injured to a greater extent
than the other is benefited, by preventing the far greater sale of its
produce to the foreigners who produce the goods excluded. The produce which
is capable of being sold in other countries is the most profitable to the
producing country; and so far from protecting others which cannot be exported,
it is the interest of a community to discontinue it. The fact that a trade
wants protection is an amply sufficient reason why it should not be protected.

Dr Adam Smith in his "Wealth of Nations," written prior to the American
revolution, and before manufactures were introduced into that country,
says, It has been the principal cause of the rapid progress of our American
colonies towards wealth and greatness, that almost their whole capitals
have hitherto been employed in agriculture. Were they to stop the importation
of European manufactures, and by thus giving a monopoly to such of their
countrymen as could manufacture the like goods, direct any considerable
part of their capital into this employment, they would obstruct instead
of promoting the progress of their country towards real wealth and greatness.
If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves
can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our
own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage.

The Americans should ponder well those words of this eminent man, and
should constantly bear in mind that under a restrictive or protective system
every trade is exposed to great disadvantage. A commercial country like
America, though it may by protection compensate in some measure to its
own manufacturers so far as regards the home trade, for the disadvantages
under which they suffer, has evidently no means of doing so with its foreign
trade. In neutral markets they must either meet the competition of the
whole world, or abandon their foreign trade altogether. I observe that
M. Thiers, one of the greatest living authors and statesmen in the world,
in his eloquent speech on free trade, delivered in the Chamber of Deputies
in France, in June 1851, takes the same view of American manufactures as
Dr Adam Smith. He says in the course of his remarkable speech, Two great
nations are now entering on a manufacturing career--America and Russia--one
has a democratic and the other a despotic form of government. Both are
making rapid strides. The Americans have good reasons for advocating the
system of free trade. They have all they require for food and clothing.
But if Washington were to return on earth, what advice would he give his
fellow-countrymen? I am sure that he would advise them to remain agriculturists,
as the surest means of liberty and of greatness. (Hear, hear, and sensation.)

Almost all the mills in Lowell of any great size are owned by incorporated
companies, of which there are 12 or 13, who are proprietors of nearly 40
of the large mills. Besides these, there are about 50 small factories at
Lowell. The large mills employ about 10,000 females and 5,000 males, who
are engaged in spinning and weaving carpets, cassimeres, flannels, broad
cloths, coarse sheeting, shirting, drillings, and printed calicoes, which
are made of low-priced cotton, and are heavy to transport.

The mills are all propelled by water-power, but the larger ones, being
all on the joint-stock system, renders it difficult for them to compete
successfully with private enterprize. Even with the protective duty of
25 per cent the stock of most of these companies, as well as that
of joint-stock companies in other parts, is at a discount, and none of
them divide more than might have been obtained as interest on money lent
on mortgage. Excepting at Lowell, Rochester, Lancaster in Pennsylvania,
and some other places, most of the machinery in America is now propelled
by steam, which, in some respects, is more advantageous. There are about
10,000 females and 5000 males employed at the 12 larger mills at Lowell,
the females being generally from 15 to 24 years of age, and on an average
do not work more than five years in the factory, when they return to their
homes to be the wives of the farmers and mechanics of the country towns.
The hours of attendance at the mills are 13½, one hour and a half
being allowed for meals, thus making the actual working time 12 hours.
What will the "Ten Hours' Bill" people of England say to this? The wages
of the female operatives average from 3 to 5 dollars per week, and they
pay a dollar and a quarter for their board and lodgings. The carpet weavers,
who are all "young ladies," earn the most, generally about three shillings
sterling a day.

There is one peculiarity which distinguishes Lowell from Manchester,
Glasgow, &c., which is, that they have no permanent factory population
as amongst us. The females employed are almost all the daughters of small
farmers, or proprietors in the New England States, who go there to make
a little money, and return home after 4 or 5 years, when they are almost
certain of getting married. They have formed the singular notion that it
is a more honourable employment to work in a cotton mill than go to service.
Their dress, and superior appearance in every respect, form a wonderful
contrast to the barefooted cotton-spinning girls of Glasgow or Paisley,
as most of them go to work dressed in dark-coloured prints or ginghams
coming up to the throat, with plain but beautiful bonnets or hoods, and
green or blue veils. The boarding-houses in which they live belong all
to the different mills in which they work, and all of them enforce the
strictest rules and regulations in regard to their conduct. In fact this
is absolutely necessary, as the sagacious founders of the town knew well
that unless the various manufacturing establishments made a moral provision
which would satisfy parents at a distance, in a country where much of the
religious strictness of the early puritans prevails, young females would
not be allowed to become mill-operatives at all. The managers have thus
to exercise the strictness of parental rule, in order that parents may
feel the conviction that their children are safe. Their exemplary behaviour
indeed, in every respect, is such that out of this large body of spinning
and weaving ladies in the very bloom of youth and beauty, only two cases
have occurred during the last five years of illegitimate births, and the
mothers of both of these were Irish, who seem to consider it inexpedient
to relax entirely their exertions in the good old cause. I have heard it
however insinuated that when the Lowell ladies of American extraction find
themselves in what is termed a "delicate situation" they move off quietly
to New York, where they are lost among the crowd, and thus the purity of
the morals of the great republic is preserved. This however I believe but
rarely occurs. Their exemplary conduct, in every respect, and, above all,
their wonderful chastity, form a striking contrast to that of the fair
sex in the Swedish capital, where, out of every five births, there are
two illegitimate. Laing, in his Travels in Sweden and Norway, states that
in the year 1838 there were born in Stockholm 2714 children, of whom 1577
were legitimate, and 1137 illegitimate. This indeed seems to be the most
flourishing trade carried on in that wonderful city, and may be considered
its staple commodity. Paris forms a sort of rival to Stockholm in this
respect, as one-third of the children born there are illegitimate. By the
last two registers that I have seen (those of 1848 and 1850) I observe
that in 1848, out of 30,000 children born in Paris, there were 10,000 illegitimate,
of whom only 1700 were acknowledged by their parents; and that in 1850
there were 19,349 legitimate births, and no less than 10,355 illegitimate.
The Swedish capital, however, leaves even the French capital far behind.
The Swedes, indeed, seem not only to have imbibed the doctrines of the
Brahmins in India, but to have carried them into actual operation. The
Brahmins inculcate the singular doctrine "that it is as sinful not to give
life to what has it not, if you have an opportunity, as to take it away
from those who already have it."

There are now throughout the States upwards of 1200 cotton mills, and
about as many woollen manufactories, giving employment and support to a
million of people, or one-third of the manufacturing population of Great
Britain. But the most appalling thing for the manufacturers of this country
to contemplate is, that factories are annually increasing in the Western
and Southern States, and that, into the latter in particular, the labour
of slaves has been successfully introduced. What will the Lowell spinning
ladies and their numerous associates in the north-eastern parts of the
Union say to this? These slaves ask no wages, can be supported for a mere
trifle, never dream of "strikes," as in this country, and many people in
America seem to think that not only the manufacturers of the Eastern States,
but even those of England herself, will ultimately sink before them. It
is more than probable that these slave factories will, for half a century
to come, confine themselves to the making of the coarser fabrics, as at
Lowell, Lancaster, Manchester, Philadelphia, &c. The protective duty
of 25 or 30 per cen. which foreign goods have to pay, will, as regards
them, fly off, and the free labour of the free States will then have to
compete on equal terms with the slave labour of the slave States. Which,
in the long run, it may be asked, is the most likely to suffer by this
competition? The slave States have always hitherto been hostile to the
high tariffs imposed upon the introduction of foreign goods, and some of
them have even gone the length of agitating a separation from the rest
of the Union on that account alone, as they naturally contend that the
effect of them is to benefit the manufacturers of the northern parts of
the Union, and to make the southern parts pay so much more than they would
otherwise do, if allowed to import from Great Britain or elsewhere their
goods free of duty. This new state of things is thus perhaps destined to
make a change in their sentiments. For all the finer sorts of cotton fabrics,
however, Britain will probably long maintain its superiority, and cannot,
therefore, be so much affected by this new and unforeseen application of
slave labour as the manufactories in the free States.

I think it may be confidently asserted that were ever a dissolution
of the Union to take place, an event certainly by no means probable, the
separation would be productive of more serious evil to the free than to
the slave States. The latter are nearly as wealthy as the former, the value
of the slaves alone being 300 millions sterling, and the vessels of the
free States would still have to come to them for their cotton, tobacco,
and sugars, whilst, if disjoined, they would have duties to pay, and would
thus be in no position to support a competition with the British or other
foreign manufactures. The slave States would then naturally obtain their
supplies of manufactured goods from the cheapest markets, and would thereby
consign to their own pockets the 25 per cent in the shape of customs,
which they have now, indirectly no doubt, though no less assuredly, to
pay to the Federal Government.

By the employment of slave labour they will also escape the pernicious
effects of the "Strikes" that are constantly occurring in this country,
and have proved a great social evil, from which the operatives themselves
are the greatest sufferers. Strikes for wages have never yet led to any
good, for though employers may be induced to listen to reason, they will
never be found yielding to coercion.

In order to shew the wonderful extent of the commerce at present existing
between Great Britain and the United States we shall give a few statistics.
The American tonnage entering American ports during the year ending 30th
June 1850, was 2,573,000 tons, and the foreign tonnage, 1,775,000 tons,
of which the British tonnage reached the enormous proportion of 1,450,000
tons, or four-fifths of all the tonnage of the world, entering United States'
ports. Turning to the trade, the exports from the United States in 1850
amounted to 151 million dollars, and the imports to 178 million dollars.
Of those imports there were from the British empire eighty-five million
dollars, or about seventeen million sterling, being nearly one-half of
the whole imports into the American ports from all parts of the world.
Of the above exports from America in 1850, the proportion to the British
empire amounted to eighty-eight million dollars. These combined exports
and imports between Great Britain and the United States gave, in 1850,
upwards of thirty-two millions sterling, in 1851, forty-one millions, and
in 1852 nearly fifty millions sterling. In the article of cotton alone,
which the Americans grow for us, and which we manufacture, the total exports
of the manufactured article from Great Britain amounted, in 1850, to L.28,252,000,
and the total amount of British cotton manufactures for the same year to
L.52,000,000, sterling. Of the proportion exported a large quantity finds
it way back to the United States, which furnished us with the raw material,
so that the trade in this article between Great Britain and the United
States may be regarded as the principal item in the commerce of the two
countries.

But while those vast results in the mutual increase of the commerce
of Great Britain and the United States have flowed from the free-trade
policy of 1846, it must be kept in view, that the Americans have not proceeded
pari passu with Great Britain in the unfettering of commerce. During that
year, Great Britain abolished protective duties, but the United States
still retain the same in a modified form. In the cotton manufacture, for
example, there is still a duty of twenty-five cents the square yard, which
our exports must bear ere they can enter into competition with the untaxed
American article. But such is the
superiority and skill of our manufacturers, that they can produce an
article, which, notwithstanding, the extra cost it bears in import and
export between the two shores, and lastly, the excess of the duty, still
can be sold with a profit in the American markets. There is still an average
duty of thirty per cent on our manufactures, which presses hard
on those which have to encounter the greater competition with the American
home manufacture. The Hon. R.J. Walker, late Secretary to the United States'
Treasury, in the speech which he delivered in 1851 at Liverpool, admits
this inequality, and avows that in due time he will be in favour of a farther
reduction. But in the meantime, he gives us a friendly hint that we are
not guiltless of high duties, seeing we levy a tax of 1200 per cent.
on tobacco. Now this duty may be too high, in as far as it offers such
an inordinate premium to the smuggler as seriously to curtail its produce.
If it could be shewn that a diminished duty, by lessening the chances of
the illicit trade and increasing the consumption of the article, would
produce a greater revenue from tobacco, then a case for reduction is completely
made out. The British Government only look to tobacco for the sake of revenue,
it being a luxury, and, therefore, its taxation inferring a legitimate
hardship to none. Mr Walker, therefore, fails in deducing any analogy between
the principle of the British tobacco-tax and that of the American tax on
foreign manufactures, which acts as a protection to the American manufactures.
If we grew tobacco within the British Isles, and made it either free as
corn or any other agricultural produce, or subjected it to an Excise still
greatly under the Customs on the foreign article, then Mr Walker might
retaliate, and set our tobacco duty against the protective duties of his
own country.

It is a curious illustration of the operations of commerce that about
a third of the enormous amount above stated is made up of cotton, which
the Americans sell us raw, and which we re-sell them manufactured. The
interest which we thus possess in the course of American events and the
struggles of American parties, is plain enough--it is a greater material
interest, at least directly, than we possess in the affairs of India, or
those of all our colonies. Nor does it much deduct from the value of that
interest that the States levy heavy duties on most of our articles, while
in India and the colonies the Customs are light;--the fact remains that
the States take all these goods, and that we are paid just the same for
them as we are paid for the goods sold to any duty-free colony. But it
is true and important that our dealings with one another might be much
larger than they are, did the Americans follow out the policy on which
they entered in 1846. There are two reasons for hoping that they will take
that course. The change towards Free-trade has been eminently successful--they
have sold more and have bought more, and have doubled the Customs' revenue.
And the tone taken by men in the position of Mr Walker shows that there
are not wanting American statesmen who perceive the right course, and are
prepared to urge an advance.

There is another reason still why we may hope that the Americans will
progress towards Free trade--the example and success of Britain. If the
trade between the countries has been greatly increased by the reform of
the American tariff in 1846, it has owed as much to the repeal of the British
corn and provision laws in the same year. It is not unreasonable to complain
that Mr Walker's speech fails to bring out this point. He not only avoids
the fact that Britain has far preceded America in freedom of trade, but
points to the amount of our Customs' duties as showing that we are lagging
behind. This is confounding two things that differ--duties for revenue,
and duties for protection--and the instance which he takes, tobacco, forms
as complete an illustration as we could desire of the difference between
British and American Customs' duties. Mr Walker complains, as I said before,
that a duty of 1200 per cent. is levied on tobacco, an article of
American produce. If that duty is so excessive as to render smuggling profitable,
then it ought to be reduced; but it has no connection with Free trade.
Its object and effects have relation purely to revenue. We must tax something,
and tobacco, a questionable luxury, seems a fitter subject than windows,
or soap, or many other things. We pay it all ourselves, and its only effect
on Americans is, that we consume a little less of their tobacco than we
otherwise might. If we pay a tax on American tobacco, we pay one also on
British spirits, and on many other articles of less questionable utility;
while the Americans raise almost all their revenue by Customs, without
the aid of excise, stamps, or assessed taxes.

Out of 53 millions of dollars raised in the United States, as the whole
of the present annual revenue pertaining to the Federal Government, not
less than 50 millions are raised by customs' or import duties; the other
3 millions being raised by land sales, &c. But the American Customs'
duties, besides being proportionally much larger than the British, are
founded in great part on quite a different principle. The tax on American
tobacco is so purely a tax for revenue, and not for the purpose of burdening
American producers in their competition with British, that tobacco is not
even allowed to be grown in Britain; and in a similar way other articles
looming largely in our Customs' returns are only imposts equivalent to
the excise levied on the same article when of home production. Take as
a contrast the American duties on the import of cotton manufactures, which
range from 25 to 35 per cent., while the home manufactures are free
from all contributions to the State. The chief effect of that tax is to
place British manufactures at a disadvantage compared with the American
manufactures; and that it happens also to produce a revenue is only ascribable
to British manufactures being 25 per cent better or cheaper than
American, although the cotton of British manufactures has had to be taken
twice across the Atlantic, while the Americans manufacture at the place
of growth.